Bloom: Civil War Days offers insight into soldiers' lives

On Saturday, I joined a few hundred other “re-enactors” for Civil War Days at Huntington Central Park.

I got there at 9 a.m., sporting the uniform of the Union Army as a member of the 1st Pennsylvania Artillery, Battery B.

The temperature was rapidly closing in on 80 degrees by then, on its way to 90-something by midday.

Now, re-enactors are kind of sticklers for historical accuracy, and there’s a cottage industry of vendors selling replica items of everything down to the tin cups we drink out of, all true to the US (or CS) Army of 1861-65.

And the uniform of the Union Army, including the 1st Penn, Batter B, was made of wool. Not some light, worsted stuff. We’re talking rough, thick and heavy here. Including a jacket buttoned up to the neck.

I started sweating that morning just looking at it in the closet.

But you know what? The weather at Gettysburg was in the 90s. Shiloh, the Vicksburg Campaign, the Wilderness – all were fought in intense heat.

You learn a lot about the Civil War at re-enactments, and lesson No. 1 is that it was often pretty uncomfortable for the soldiers. And we’re not dealing with the dysentery and other health threats that cost both armies so dearly in the Civil War.

But you also learn how they coped: with acceptance of their lot, tinged with humor, determination and camaraderie.

***

The first battle was at 1:30. I was assigned to run powder from the limber – the large box on wheels where it’s stored – to the crew at the gun. When the gun is fired, I’m several yards behind it, ready to run a new charge up.

On Saturday, there was the faintest of breezes stirring the air, and it brought the gunsmoke from our first shot slowly back toward us. For a second or two, we were enveloped in an acrid fog, the spectators were erased from sight, and my view was limited to the gun and forward crew silhouetted against a bright yellowish haze.

As the smoke cleared, our corporal, whose position was a couple steps in front of me, turned around with a huge grin and exclaimed, “I think I just had a Civil War moment!”

For, in that fleeting bubble of heat and smoke and ghostly figures, we had indeed traveled back in time 150 years.

***

Each gun is fired by a cannoneer (on Saturday, in my crew, this duty went to a fellow named Gunnar … I kid you not), who pulls a lanyard attached to a small primer charge, which then sparks the main charge.

Boom.

It’s not a method that lends itself to precision timing. But near the end of the first battle, we got off a three-gun volley that was dead-on simultaneous. It was a real crowd-pleaser.

High-fives would have been an anachronism, so we managed to restrain ourselves. But it was a close call.

***

One of the happy circumstances of re-enacting, for me, is that my two daughters are interested also, and my wife is a very good sport about the whole thing. They dress up in the hoop skirts and be-ribboned hats of the period, and come out to watch the battles and shop in the “town” – the area where various vendors have booths or tents set up, selling period clothing, dishes and other household items, photos and paintings, etc.

On Saturday night, there was a dance on the edge of town, featuring a string band and a caller leading us through many of the popular dances of the Civil War era – the Virginia reel, quadrilles, and others.

As I danced with my daughters, radiant in their fine dresses, smiling and laughing, within a circle of lights under a starry sky, I had a very sublime Civil War moment of my own.

- Roger Bloom is the community editor of The Current. He has been a Civil War re-enactor for five years.